


words in made up languages

by nowhere_blake



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean also has a thing about Chris Pine but who can blame him for that, Dean gets strangely emotional about lgbtq+ representation on tv and it's like a whole thing, Dean is a Trekkie because of course he is, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Sibling Incest, Star Trek References, T'hy'la, snippets from on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowhere_blake/pseuds/nowhere_blake
Summary: Just like the word incest feels wrong and not good enough, brother doesn’t seem to cover it either.Dean has always thought this thing between him and Sam was pretty indescribable. Not necessarily in a romantic way, liketoo intense for words, but in athis thing between us is too fucked up for the English language to have a word forway. Enter Gene Roddenberry and his infamous footnotes. Maybe Dean was looking at the wrong language.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 76





	1. friend, brother and/or lover

**Author's Note:**

> _um? dunno, lads, I started re-watching Supernatural, and this kind of just happened? Dean loves Star Trek and his brother, but what else is new. there might be some British spelling I missed, because Americanising my writing is something I suck at. anyways, enjoy my first ever Supernatural fic <3_
> 
> **T'hy'la** is an apocryphal term in Star Trek coined by Gene Roddenberry in an infamous footnote in his novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture; the footnote states that Spock thinks of Kirk as his t'hy'la, a Vulcan word that can mean "friend," "brother" or "lover."

Just like the word incest feels wrong and not good enough, brother doesn’t seem to cover it either. It’s what you say, almost every day - if you had to count the amount of times the word effortlessly rolled off your tongue, you’d be here for an eternity. Sometimes you say it without thinking about it, because if nothing else, at least it is factually true. You say it to strangers, sometimes to police officers, to crying widows. Sam. Your brother. It’s a way to link the two of you together, and you appreciate that, even if it’s not enough. Sometimes you say it with meaning. Maybe you’re fighting or confessing, perhaps having too-rushed sex against a gas station bathroom door that you will later regret, because  _ ew, gas station bathroom door _ . You look into Sam’s eyes and you know he understands too, what you are to each other, something language cannot possibly begin to describe. You don’t know any alternatives though, so you just stick with brother. It’s close enough, and Sam, the only person who’d ever need to understand, gets it.

It’s not that you’ve seen  _ all  _ of Star Trek. You don’t call yourself a fan. But you’ve seen enough reruns on crappy motel TVs, read enough shitty falling apart paperbacks from library sales, that you know about it. Once you're back on the road together Sam drags you to the cinema - Lucifer be damned - because you haven’t been in ages, because when you were kids it used to be a treat. It’s the only thing that’s on in the local one-screen, in the middle of nowhere. You never paid less for popcorn in your life. You enjoy it, there’s action and pretty people on a screen and you know the premise well enough that it invokes nostalgia in you. You’re surprised actually how well you know the story and the characters, that you know it well enough to recognize that when Spock kisses Uhura, that shit ain’t right. It just doesn’t sit well with you. You google it later on and it turns out, it doesn’t sit well with the rest of the world either. When you come across the word, you know you’ve seen it before, that you’re aware of its meaning. You just never thought about it that way. In relation to yourself and your brother. T'hy'la. The definition says it’s untranslatable from Vulcan to English, that it means friend, brother and/or lover. And more. You're not a fan of the word soulmate, but yeah. Fuck.

Your breath hitches. It turns out there is a word for it after all. It might be a made-up one, in a made-up alien language for a made-up TV show, but what words, what languages aren’t made up? The next time you say brother, it rolls off your tongue different. When you say brother, you mean t'hy’la. It must sound different as well, because Sam looks up. There is a witness and a case and a monster to think about right now, but Sam looks up. Your eyes meet and you know that he knows. He can hear it.

Right now is not the time, but later, after the immediate danger has gone, feeling tired in your bones and a little bruised up, you curl up in bed together. Your brother is all around you, the smell of his hair - smoke and salt and shampoo and  _ Sam _ \- in your nose, his long octopus arms all over you. He’s leaving marks all over your body, adding pretty bruises to the ones you already have. After, you hold him tight and you watch Star Trek on his laptop in the dark motel room, under the covers and when Spock and Kirk make it clear they are willing to die for each other, you squeeze your brother just a little bit tighter. You know, he knows, but you want to say it again, so you do.

‘Brother.’

The word slips off your tongue with ease, the meaning behind it the same as always. It means Sam. It means together. It means not giving up on each other, no matter what. You realize, nothing’s changed. You always meant it like that. It’s always been untranslatable. Friend and brother and lover. And more. Sam grips you tighter. You fall asleep like that.


	2. "there's a moon near Starbase 46..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> out gay men kissing on Star Trek for the first time in the show's admittedly very more-than-subtext-gay-but-never-this-open 50 year history was something pretty fucking emotional for me - thought Dean might have some feelings on that too. he'd also hate Discovery, I'm sure, because he's a grouchy traditional Trekkie, but he'd watch it all too, just so he can be angry about it
> 
> [Paul and Hugh's kiss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haNA_JIAF9o) also has very end-of-the-world Sam and Dean vibes, so

You pass the TV magazine on your way to the porn, or the cash register, or the pie section - you forgot where you were even going. You double-back. The front cover has two actors on it, a pale one, transparent eyelashes and near-invisible-blond eyebrows, and a dark, handsome one, who's tall and lean. Star Trek uniforms, unmistakably so, even if they look a bit too modern and fancy, a bit too Apple Store for your taste. They look good though. Not Chris Pine good, but good. You read the words again, you make a weird sound when you breathe out, your sweating fingers slip on the six-pack you’re holding. You grab the magazine before you can think about it, throw it on the counter before you can freak out over why this is hitting you so hard.

You notice Sam looking at the magazine when you dump all the stuff on the backseat, but he doesn’t say anything. You read the article and feel strangely choked up when you throw the magazine away with the rest of the trash, but it's not like you can justify it to yourself, taking the thing home and holding onto it.

You watch a few episodes back to back on your laptop on a sleepless night - you can't hear it, but you imagine Sam snoring in his own room and the thought fills you with contentedness. The blue light of the laptop makes your skin glow funny in the dark of the room.

You have thoughts on this new series. You think about ranting to Sam over breakfast. You don't, because he's the nerd, not you, and geekboy doesn't need more ammo on you than he already has anyway. For an insane moment, you think about making a reddit account and getting into arguments with 13-year-olds on the internet about it. You have better things to do though. Saving the world and all that shit.

It’s a few weeks later when you finally get to  _ that  _ episode. Sam’s half-asleep in your arms, curled into your side, the kind of exhausted, when your whole body aches, and letting yourself go limp on a soft piece of furniture, knowing you’re safe (for the moment, relatively speaking) is the best fucking feeling in the world.

You can’t let go though, the adrenalin still pumping through your body from earlier, and you adjust Sam’s gigantic body so his bony elbows are not directly hitting you in the stomach. He barely stirs. You balance the laptop half on Sam’s thigh and half on your own lap, open a beer - have to go slow, because you can’t reach the rest of the six-pack without jolting Sam. Half-way through the episode Sam wakes up a little, shows a bit of interest, frowns at the screen occasionally, asks questions about things he doesn’t understand about the plot. You can feel your body go tight just before the kiss, you know it’s going to happen, you stop blinking, because you don’t want to miss it.

‘The first gay kiss in what… 50 years this show’s been on?’ Sam asks, which means he's read the article too, and you can feel his fingers go tight around your hips.

‘There was a lesbian one a while back, but it was different,’ you mutter distractedly, not questioning how you know that, still staring at the screen.

‘Quite something, huh?’ Sam says then, and yeah. It sure is.

You never thought it’d mean so much, that it’d have such an effect on you. You never really struggled that much with your sexuality, or trying to fit in. You know what you like,  _ who  _ you like (mainly your brother, but that’s a different issue altogether), you know who you are. You never needed validation from people outside of your family, you’re not the kind of guy who needs to feel accepted by the world. (A goddamn thank you would be nice for saving it multiple times, but hey. You can’t always get what you want.)

There’s something about this though. You’re not really a fan, at least you keep telling yourself you’re not, but you grew up with these stories, you grew up with this universe, and fuck it, space is just  _ cool _ . So it means something. Two men, sharing a kiss, like it’s the most normal thing in the goddamn world. The kiss is a promise, a goodbye, it's desperate, it's urgent and fuck, you know exactly how that feels. You pull Sam closer, tangle fingers in his hair. He awkwardly reaches up, balancing himself on your thigh, kisses you - dry and fleeting, it’s more about the gesture, not the way it feels - because he knows you’re weirdly emotional about this.

‘I just hope,’ you say, once Sam’s settled down again, curled himself around you like some sort of weird sea-creature - but not before stealing a sip of your beer, ‘that this pisses off a bunch of redneck sons-of-bitches obsessed with this show. That they fucking shit themselves in anger.’

Sam laughs, sleepy and warm, you can feel it reverberating in your own body. ‘It’s good that kids can see stuff like this on TV though,’ he says into your chest. If you have tears in your eyes for some reason, it’s okay, because Sam’s out before the episode even ends.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, let me know what you think <3 come say hi on tumblr [ @princessconsuelapark](https://princessconsuelapark.tumblr.com/) 💕
> 
> buy me a [coffee](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/nowhereblake) if you feel like ☕


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